


Sex and Sensuality

by des_esseintes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexuality, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:05:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/des_esseintes/pseuds/des_esseintes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fanfic without a plot.</p><p>In a deathly lull between cases, Sherlock staves off boredom by engaging his flatmate in a structured exploration of the aesthetic lifestyle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sex and Sensuality

“It’s no surprise,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“Sorry, what?”

John had been engaged all morning in a practised study of impatience. Every thing he did was just slightly more emphatic than necessary: the fall of his feet on the stairs a little too sudden and heavy; his tea a few degrees too hot; the shriek of distended springs in the armchair’s seat-cushions a trifle too shrill. His friend, by contrast, was a study in apathy, lying prone on the sofa with his blue dressing gown hanging over the side like the limp wing of some downed bird. The absence of Sherlock (for it did seem very much as though he had vacated his physical environs; flown out the window, perhaps, to tour the city at his leisure, to gently remove the roofs of the apartments and businesses that housed the breathing essence of London and observe first-hand all the oddities and coincidences he was accustomed to reading from a spatter of mud or the turn of a trouser leg) was proving, if possible, more disconcerting than his presence. He had scarcely moved since the Camberwell case a fortnight previous, and these were the first words John had had from him in fully three days.

“Your frustration.” His voice was half an octave lower than usual, and every syllable was lengthened by a world-weary drawl. “It’s _typical_.”

John sat back in his seat. The springs registered a mild protest. “I’m not sure where to start.”

“Better not to.”

“No, hang on. What frustration?”

He gave a sigh of such deliberation that John had to suppress the urge to hit him. Physical threats were generally wasted on Sherlock.

“Your recent lack of a sexual partner has had an adverse effect on your mood.”

“Yes, thank you, couldn’t have worked that out on my own. Good job I’ve got the great detective around to remind me.”

As was sarcasm, come to that, not because he failed to understand it but because John’s remarks rarely stood up to his exacting standards.

“Case in point,” Sherlock said, hitting the plosives with relish. He swung his legs down off the sofa and sat upright, the blue satin of the dressing-gown clinging and twining around his limbs. “You last had intercourse with Sarah just over three weeks ago.” John forbore to answer that as it deserved. “While on the case, you felt no need for that sort of release. You rarely do when actively engaged in hard physical exertion or facing immediate danger, and we had plenty of both for the duration of that little matter.”

“True.” John’s forearm bore a narrow stretch of red and healing skin to prove it, souvenir of a bullet that had thankfully shot a little wide of its mark.

“After its conclusion, however, you were in a mood to celebrate. Sarah was not. She is in the process of reconsidering whether the charm of your company and the undoubted prowess you bring to the bedroom are adequate compensation for the professional awkwardness of an office romance and your tendency to disappear at a text from your occasionally entertaining but always infuriating flatmate.”

John sputtered.

“In the meantime, she’s inclined to handle her needs herself. No doubt she is quite capable of doing so; she strikes me as the type to manage such things with an admirable combination of practicality and inventiveness. And then there is the fact that her preferred brand of vibrator has nearly as many settings and applications as your smart-phone, the essential difference being that she clearly knows how to use them.”

John’s expression at that point most closely resembled that of a man in the throes of a massive heart attack.

“Oh, _please_ ,” Sherlock said. “You’d never have survived the army with sensibilities that delicate.”

“That’s why they sacked me,” John said, once he found he could form words again. “Not dirty-minded enough.”

“I doubt that.” Physical violence, sarcasm, and flippant attempts to lighten the mood.

“But, Sherlock, that was—the army had _context_.”

“Our relationship may be many things, John, but it is hardly lacking in context.”

“How did you know about the vibrator?”

“The floors in this flat are not as sound-proof as you would evidently like to believe.”

“Knew we should have gone back to hers that evening,” John muttered. “All right, that’s the frustration, and fair enough—but why typical?”

“Is there any way in which you don’t typify the English male of your age and status, John? Excepting of course your demonstrated willingness to tolerate my company and your rather unexpected skill with firearms. The perfect juror, the target member of the voting public, the unquestioning product of your environment; you are the concentrated essence of an ideal. My brother would like nothing better than to bottle you for further study and, at calculated intervals, to spray you up and down Whitehall in an effort to cloak the odour of corruption.”

“Right,” said John, who had nothing to say to this, considering himself as he did a reasonably courageous man, and discretion being the better part of _& c_. “I’m out for the day.” He clapped his hands down on the arm-rests and levered himself out of the chair.

“Oh, don’t be petulant.”

“That coming from you?”

“You wanted an explanation.”

“On reflection, I really didn’t.”

Sherlock stretched, which is an inadequate word to describe the process that ensued. He brought his feet up to slide forward along the coffee table as his legs reached their full length, his hands attaining altitudes that should not have been humanly possible, the tension rippling along his wrists and arms and shoulders and held for the space of a breath. Then he collapsed back against the couch as though exhausted by this brief show of vigour and said in a contemplative tone, “The surprise would be if you weren’t in a bad temper, all things considered.”

“All things. Such as you, for example?”

“You’ve never learnt to distract yourself when danger and partnered sex are both unavailable.”

“I manage.”

“Having a quick one off the wrist while you’re in the shower is a temporary solution at best.”

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t walk out that door right now.”

“John, John, John,” he said, “you know as well—nearly as well—as I do that you aren’t going anywhere.”

“That so?” The good doctor crossed his arms over his chest, perhaps imagining this might lend dignity to his indignation.

“It is,” said Sherlock. “You’re not going anywhere because you know I can assist you.”

John blinked. “Again, not really sure where to start. You’re offering to help me—”

“My motives are purely selfish, I assure you. I need a distraction as much as you do.”

“Well, that’s a relief. But you want to help me manage my—er—sexual frustration, Sherlock?”

“Oh, never fear. I don’t intend to sully the bland heteronormativity of your lifestyle. I am proposing something far more interesting than that.”

“And sex isn’t interesting?”

“As a physiological phenomenon, certainly. Even, to a certain degree, as a social one. But not as a practical matter. The foreplay, both intellectual and physical, the engagement of the senses—all that has at least the possibility of interest, but the act itself? _Sublimely_ dull,” he said. “Without exception, in my experience.”

“And what sort of experience is that?” Under the circumstances, John might be forgiven the note of challenge in this question.

“Extensive. I embarked on a study during my second year at university and was able to capture a fair cross-section of society—age, race, gender, physical type, sexual identity and experience, social and economic strata.”

John absorbed this. “That’s very…calculated of you. So, what, you’d meet someone in Sainsbury’s and say, ‘I’ve been looking for a mid-sixties professional woman from Durham, fancy a shag?’ “

“It required rather more finesse than that, but yes, you have the essential idea.”

“That’s mad, Sherlock. _You’re_ mad.”

“Have I shocked you?” His voice carried the slightest breath of genuine delight laced through the boredom. “After everything else, John, this is what crosses the line? Sex as a scientific endeavour?”

“Sex without—I don’t know, Sherlock. I’ve pulled as many one-nighters as the next army bloke, but they’ve never been—”

“Unfeeling?” Sherlock’s lip curled. “Robotic? Devoid of even momentary personal connection? You’d accuse me of dehumanising sex. I’ll accuse you of desensitising it.”

“I don’t—”

“Have any idea what I mean. Yes, I know. You suffer from our society’s common affliction of mistaking any ecstatic experience as also sexual in nature. You cannot watch a woman eating a decadent dessert without comparing her expression to those you’ve seen in bed, nor can you be stimulated by a complex and impassioned discussion without considering, at least subconsciously, the other person’s potential value as a sexual partner. What you don’t realise is that this endless pursuit of orgasm has distracted you from sensual enjoyment. Do you want to know what I did after the experimentation in my second year, John? I gave up on sex as unnecessary and unworthy of my time, and instead I devoted my attention to _sensual_ experimentation. The results were extraordinary. I’ve since narrowed my focus, of course—a generalist can only hope to accomplish so much—but I applied myself to any number of areas before determining which best suited my particular talents, and the exploration in and of itself provided just the sort of distraction I needed. And now we are both in desperate need of distraction.”

“I don’t agree with a single thing you’ve just said.” Sherlock answered this with an elegant roll of his shoulders, as though to say this opinion was unworthy of a verbal counter. “No, really, I don’t,” John insisted, “and for that matter I don’t think you do either. You can’t just overcome biology. Not even Sherlock Holmes.”

“I am not suggesting you stop ‘managing’, however and whenever you need to. I’m also not suggesting you break things off with Sarah if she determines you’re worth the effort. What I’m proposing is that you learn to use and appreciate your _senses_ , John. Ninety per-cent of deduction is observation, and ninety per-cent of _that_ is effective implementation of the tools we have developed in millions of years of evolution—and what use has it all been if we can’t distinguish them from base sexual sensation?”

“Not a detective,” John said. “I don’t need to learn to do what you do.”

“I’ve bent my capacity for sensual experience to a practical end. It hardly follows you need do the same. Experience is an end in itself.”

“All right, supposing that’s true, I still don’t understand what you want me to do about it.”

“The question is what you will let me do about it. Allow me to present you with a programme of study in sensation, John. I promise that, if nothing else, neither of us will be bored.” John frowned, and the queer pale eyes danced. “If you like, we can negotiate a safe-word.”

It should be mentioned that John’s leg was beginning to ache; that Sarah had been remarkably firm in her insistence that she would be the one to phone, when she was ready; and that, to be honest, he was by this time quite dismally bored.

“What did you have in mind?”


End file.
